They cheered, shouted, sounded horns and banged drums, waving signs with slogans 'No War On Iraq' and 'Make Tea, Not War'.

Contingents arrived in the capital from about 250 cities and towns across the UK.

The three-and-a-half mile march - organised by Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Muslim Association of Britain - was started early by police, over concern at the number of people gathering.

Two separate meeting points were used before the streams converged in Piccadilly Circus and made their way to Hyde Park for a rally.

Christian message

Organiser John Rees said the turnout had been fantastic with an "electric atmosphere but also very serious and determined".

Leading the demonstrators into the park was Italian student Giancarlo Suella, 29, who held a banner
reading: 'Bush And Blair, A Good Christian Will Never Kill'.

If Mr Bush and Mr Blair ignored them "they are not rightful leaders of a democracy", he said.

There was one gesture of support for military action to remove Saddam Hussein elsewhere in London during the rally.

Writer Jacques More, 44, from Croydon, south London, stood with a placard outside the Iraqi section of the Jordanian embassy in central London, saying that although a last resort war was necessary "when evil dictators rule and murder their own people".